Busy, Busy, Busy

Wow... Just... Wow.

I was so worried that the game would change radically and I be lost of fall behind or something. Boy was I wrong... And right. The 3.0.2 patch was just what I needed. I'd been just marking time until Wrath of the Lich King and... Boom!!! All kinds of fun goodness dropped right in my lap. I've been playing almost non-stop since. There's all kinds of new, fun things to do - including but not limited to:

1) Playing a paladin: For years people have made fun of me because I had two paladins and how boring they are. Who's laughing maniacally now, bitches!!! Retribution got so many buffs that paladins are the "it" class right now. I did a WSG and someone said "Oh good. We've got 3 paladins. We're going to tear shit up" (his words, not mine) and that we did. Ret has become such luscious burst damagey fun that I can't play my paladins enough (nor can other people. I've seen 5 on a side in WSG and 12 in AV). I just want to go and smash things. I like watching rogues run away (or even help me quest just so I don't turn on them and squash them like the bugs that they are). I like seeing a warlock and thinking I can kill him. I like destroying warriors... And huntards... They're the best. Making them go splat while they flail away with their clumsy little toy weapons.

But seriously... The first day, my Alliance server came up first so I took that paladin on a tour of Stormwind harbor (that place is magnificent by the way... those dwarves have been busy... And there's now a way to get from Stormwind to Darnassus that _doesn't_ involve a run through level 20-27 contested territory. /cry) and tried out ret. I did the two Skettis dailies and later told my horde guild: If you see a ret paladin, you do what we do... You run. I was still clumsy at it but... Damn... Things just die so quickly and I don't lose mana because of replenishment and judgement of wisdom. If something _does_ live long enough (and between Crusader Strike, Judgement, Divine Storm and Hammer of Wrath, very few things do) to do damage, I get an instant cast flash of light often enough to keep me at full health. It's obscene...

So I've been PvPing up a (divine) storm. It's just too fun. I know the nerf bat is coming so I'm enjoying it while I can... On both of my paladins. Words elude me for how fun it is. I can walk up to another character and do 12k of damage before they are really even aware that something is hitting them. Each has earned enough honor to pick up a couple of pieces of Merciless Gladiator's gear and I soloed a mob in Botanica on my Alliance paladin(and on my Alliance mage) so I could fill out the rest with the blue gear.

2) Karazhan: After the patch, people were on and interested in trying out their fancy new 51 point talents - myself among them. I was also worried about how much my armor was being nerfed. It turns out that the armor on PvP gear was not lowered and since I used 4 pieces of PvP gear to tank in, I was almost completely unaffected. I lost about 5.5k armor but it's a lot less than I thought it would be. With swipe affecting more than 3 mobs, Hiahotah is a tank tank tank tank tanking machine. The 8 pulls of mage killers in the ballroom? Didn't lose a single one of them. So we breezed through Opera with 8 people on one night. The next night we got all the way through to Chess and even took a look at Prince - with 9. We had 10 on Sunday night but the server crashed and was down for over an hour. Everyone left. Monday we had 10 again and we downed Prince for the first time... On our first attempt. And then we did the same with Illhoof, Netherspite and Nightbane - all guild firsts. We've cleared Karazhan - sure the mobs have 30% less health but that's never been the problem for us. It's about finding a time when 10 people are on. But those times are few and far between because people have jobs and wives and husbands and kids and... Well... You don't want to miss summer by staying inside and playing video games. There hasn't been a time in the last 5-6 months when we couldn't have done it if we'd had the time. But now that's done. And about 9 people got the "Karazhan" Achievement. Which brings me to:

3) Achievements: An interesting wrinkle. It gives you something to work towards. I've spent time just wandering around zones and getting to the one or two nooks or crannies I didn't get to and getting an Achievement out of it. I did a couple of the fishing items. I've done a few of the PvP Achievements (including the 300k damage one that I got last night during a long WSG turtle). In some ways, Achievements are ruining battlegrounds because people are selfishly doing things that, under normal circumstances, help the team but if the other team is doing the same thing, their selfish individual goals prevent us from winning - specifically trying for the "Not in My House" achievement - where you have to kill 10 flag bearers before they leave your flag room. I hated WSG before and I hate it more now. But I got my marks for the Alliance paladin's new bracers so I'm done for a while.

4) Hallow's End: As of yesterday, the Sinister Squashling and the helm can drop from trick or treating and not just from the Headless Horseman event. My horde paladin now has both of them so... I'm feeling like I should go for the "The Hallowed" title - which as of 3.0.3 will no longer require the "collect 20 masks" quest. We've also done the Headless Horseman event a few times. We all have the rings from last year but it's still a way to get the Squashling. And we _do_ have some new alts that don't have the rings and haven't got the achievement to kill him. I got to do him on my horde paladin last night and we thrashed him. He didn't even throw out pumpkins on phase 3. And then I two hand tanked him. I put on all my +dodge/parry/defense tanking gear but kept my giant epeen and beat the crap out of him to hold aggro. It worked pretty well, but I took a lot more damage than I would have if I'd worn a shield... But where's the pleasure in that.

5) Inscription: With the assistance of our resident packrat, I got my horde inscriber to 350 (the effective max level right now) but the Alliance side has required a certain amount of gathering. She's only up to 215 or so. But they can both make armor vellums so I've FINALLY been able to enchant my alts' gear. FINALLY. It's been so frustrated to have a max level enchanter all decked out in epics and alts that don't even have the most basic enchants on their gear. No more. All I need now is a spin around the Hinterlands with an herbalist and I'm good to go. I've also been trying to recoup some of my expenses so I've spent a little time at the AH.

6) Titles: Some of my characters already have titles. Hiahotah has three: Champion of the Naaru, Ambassador and Grunt. Gifteye has Lt. Commander (and is closing in on Ambassador). Kaylee has Ambassador. Touchofgrey is a Sergeant Major. But Hoban doesn't have a title. He's a few costumes and a few trips to the candy buckets of Kalimdor away from "the Hallowed". Hiahotah is exalted with CE and I could grind out the Cenarion Circle rep pretty easily. I've certainly done it before... But on a level 60 mage. As a level 70 tank, I have other options - namely completing group quests solo, summoning mini bosses and jumping that level 60 elite that drops 7-10 encrypted texts every time I see her - not to mention popping my head into AQ20 to try to solo some of the early trash pulls. I'm proud of the Champion of the Naaru title, but the Guardian of Cenarius also seems fitting.

There's just so much to do, I get distracted. My Alliance characters need the most love in the way of grinding and gathering, but the horde guild is considerably more active so I have been hanging out there a fair amount (including 5 trips to Karazhan in 8 days). I should really pick one goal and stick to it because as soon as the expansion comes, it's a race to 80 (with 5 70's now, not 2), rolling a death knight and then it's all the new instances... And heroics... And then Naxx-10. It will be 6-8 months before I even think about doing any of these things again.